Straw Enemies
We tend to look at Russia with our memory and not with our brain. What I mean by this is that many still think of Russia as the old Soviet Union that we fought so long against in the Cold War. A silent war that prompted nail biting for both us and them. Things have changed now and when the Soviet Union broke up, it lost a lot of its major weapons and manpower. No it still isn't a small country, the population is estimated at over 150 million people and its land mass is still far larger than the United States, but its military has gone through some troubled times. There are those that would want us to think that certain countries are our enemies, because this allows them to get huge weapons appropriations through the House and Senate for arms, after all the arms lobby is very powerful and I am sure that they make it worthwhile for these people, if you know what I mean?
Rotting Russian Warships I hope that no one who reads this article thinks for one second that I want to see the United States in a position where it isn't adequately protected, because I certainly do not. The problem is that purchasing weapons systems for billions of dollars that do not work, or that will never be able to be used because war has changed so much, is just as harmful as an attack. It is a fiscal attack and helps to put us even deeper in the financial hole that will eventually destroy us if we do nothing to stop the bleeding. I recently saw an article that states that China, another country that we love to hate, has decreased their military budget by 7% this year. I can not verify this as their budget is secret, but if it is true it shows that not everyone is crazy and buying billion dollar planes and multibillion dollar ships. I have said this before, but just look at our aircraft carriers. While they are the pride of our navy, the new rocket powered torpedoes that travel at hundreds of miles per hour certainly have made them more vulnerable than they ever have been. It was the thinking that the purpose of the carrier was to get all the planes off even if the carrier sunk. This was nuclear war thinking. It meant that the planes could still drop their nukes on the enemy.
Rusting Russian Nuclear Subs We have been fighting conventional wars thank God. In a conventional war it is not enough just to get the planes off before losing a ship that has thousands of men on it and costs almost 5 billion dollars. This is totally unacceptable. Do we really need 13 of these ships? Most would say yes because they are scared to think that this fleet would be reduced, but the truth of the matter is that we could probably do just as much with about 6 or 7 carriers. We have to remember that we have some air bases in other countries such as Australia, Italy, Turkey, Germany, Netherlands, Japan, South Korea, Portugal, Kyrgyzstan, Spain, Bulgaria, United Kingdom, El Salvador, Denmark, Diego Garcia, Belgium, Slovakia, Oman, Marshall Islands, Columbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Netherlands, Wake Island and Puerto Rico. These are the countries that have U.S. bases that we know about and don't think for one second that there is only one in each country. Take Japan for example, there are several bases in Japan that are known. Some of these bases are only minor, but they can be expanded anytime we need to do so. As you can see, we have the world pretty well covered with military air bases. Russia has a couple of carriers, but the head of the Russian military has said that even a country like Russia can not afford to keep a large fleet of carriers, because they cost so much to build and operate. Ah common sense. If one looks at Google Earth and checks out Russia, they will see an amazing sight. There are rusting naval ships in many different places. They have been left to rot and some are even on their side. If it wasn't for the fact that Russia has nukes, they probably would not be considered a threat at all. There is a fly in the ointment however, in that Russia is courting Venezuela, another stated enemy of the United States. This is probably being done because the Russians are very upset by the fact that we have courted their former states and even have bases in some and have invited some to join NATO. The Russians also feel that we should have supported them, or at least kept quite, when they engaged Georgia. The Russians have sold aircraft and helicopters to Venezuela and many think that is to help them if the US invades. The US has said that it had no intention of invading Venezuela, but if they did, would a few planes make any difference? Of course not, but it does endear Russia to this oil rich country doesn't it? Quite frankly, the Russian military is not much of a threat to us, but you wouldn't know that if you listen to the war hawks. The same is true of China. Manpower is not enough to win wars anymore in the nuclear age. We should be putting more money in smaller ships that have stealth technology and improved capabilities. The Russians proved years ago that if you could make a ship rise just above the water it could travel at hundreds of miles per hour. We should be looking into this. A large fleet of these ships could be more effective than having too many carriers that use up our military budget. China is a different case from Russia. The Chinese will never be happy until their country is reunited. Instead of trying to help with some solution that might be acceptable to all, we seem to delight in tweaking the Chinese by continuously selling powerful weapons to Taiwan. If the Chinese attack Taiwan we have promised to use our forces to protect that island. Hey, helping foreign countries is one thing, but getting in the middle of a military struggle that has nothing to do with this country is another ball game. The Chinese have kept their word so far on Hong Kong and that is a good sign. It may not be the same as it was under the British, but we don't see where the Chinese have even changed the economic and political systems. Hong Kong is now described as a non-sovereign partial democracy with an un elected executive. Things could have certainly been a lot worse. It is a special administrative region of China as is Macau. Wikipedia describes Hong Kong as “one of the world's leading international financial centers, with a major capitalist service economy characterized by low taxation, free trade and minimum government intervention under the ethos of positive non-interventionism.” So are our enemies really what was once known as paper tigers? Could it possibly be that our enemies are not really enemies at all? When election time comes up for the House and Senate, we always hear that China is our big danger and that Russia is rebuilding its military and is dangerous. Maybe it is time to stop this dangerous talk and try to get along with these countries. We are in a position where our weapons are so superior to those of China and Russia, that even if those two countries joined forces and launched an attack (non nuclear) our weapons would be far superior overall. The problem is that sometimes numbers are more important than technology and even a billion dollar plane that has to go up against twenty, 5 million dollar planes would lose, so we have to think about that possibility also and guard against it. It is time to work together and make this world a better place. We have to defuse the old thinking and begin anew. Just imagine what we could accomplish as a race if we all joined together and eliminated the energy problem. That would eliminate competition for a finite oil supply and make all our lives better, but unfortunately this is not wanted because of huge profits being lost on oil. It is going to take something that I can not even imagine to get us to start thinking about helping the common person again and I hope that doesn't turn out to be a war. |
